Decor

And welcome to The Road to Domestication in the year 2018, folks! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s with friends and family! Let’s dive right in now, shall we?

I FINALLY feel like I’ve got my office together in the new house. (I keep saying “new house” – we moved here in May, can I still say that?) Anyways, it’s taken me that long to get everything arranged in the office (and decorate in there) the way I want it so I can walk in the door and breathe a sigh of peace instead of one filled with frustration. Thank goodness! It was starting to weigh on me!

One of the hardest things of having a home office that you actually do work out of is getting it to “feel right”. Know what I mean? This part of your home literally has to run differently than the rest of your home does, and sometimes that creates issues in work flow. So when Marie Nieves contacted me regarding a post about a redecorating a home office even when it is SMALL, well, that struck a chord. Check out her ideas!

Ugh, do you ever feel like you need one whole floor to organize all your office furniture, electronics, supplies and decoration? Well, I did, every day, until I realized what I’m doing wrong with my humble office space. All you need is good designing and decorating skills and even the smallest of spaces can feel and look spacious and airy. Here are some examples!

In our new home we have one very long hallway. I mean, it’s long, y’all. (I just now stopped to measure it – it’s actually almost 20 feet long).

On one side of the hallway, there are entrances to the nursery, the guest bath, the office and the guest bedroom. On the other side, all there is is an entrance to the living room and then this HUGE blank wall. I feel like it just goes on for miles!

What in the world am I going to do with this hallway? That was one of the first things I asked myself when we moved in. I thought of a few things…

All the pics over the years of the girls, I could just keep on framing them and adding them to the hall. But then, who would see them? Just us! I would want those to be out everywhere for folks to see!

Well, if I didn’t want anyone to see, I could always start hanging those canvases I paint when I go to those painting parties. They’ll fill the space. And I really don’t care if anyone ever sees those or not. I’m certainly not what I’d call an artist!

What if we could use it for storage with some kind of shelving system? But what on earth do we have to store that would take up that much room?!

To be honest, I’m still at a bit of a loss, but I’ve been tossing around a few more ideas of late. And here’s a good point: long, narrow hallways are prone to bad Feng Shui, if not cared for effectively. This is because it may have a combination of stagnant energy (Si Chi) and rushing (Sha Chi). Fortunately, there are many things you can do to improve your home’s Feng Shui.

Well, I have no idea if this is going to become a regular thing…a birthday holiday shelf – for the twins, that is! But it’s a nice way to break up my decoration phases, and, since we just had a huge party for the girls first birthday, I included the shelf as part of the party decor. (More about the party later!) But for now…check out the 2017 First Birthday Holiday Shelf!

New house and a new spot for the shelf, but still can be seen from the front door pretty easily, so that’s good!

The overhead light bulbs blew in our nursery the other day. We didn’t happen to have any replacement bulbs on hand, for a minute, I thought, oh gosh, what on earth am I gonna get accomplished in this lighting? How am I gonna change diapers in the dark?! Then I remembered that I actually have a lamp in the nursery as a part of the decor. (Mommy brain. They say you get your brain back after you have the baby. Lies, I tell you. All lies!) I turned on the lamp and it worked beautifully, of course. Perfect!

As I started to look around the room, I realized that I liked the room even MORE with the lamp light than I did with the overhead light! Funny how that happens some times, right?!

Lighting and art go hand in hand. Typically, light is used to illuminate artworks of all types, from paintings to sculptures, to even the furniture you have in your home. Light, however, can be so much more than that. Artists have begun to use light as their medium, and the results are just phenomenal. Not only does this “light art” offer a new medium for artists to express themselves but it also offers everyday people like you the chance to be more creative when lighting your home.

Light can trick the senses. It can instill a feeling. It can calm you; it can energize you, and, once the sun goes down, it can work as a function for you. Here are three ways you can use light to change your space.

Make it Appear Bigger:

Claustrophobic spaces are terrible. They close in on you, limit your space, and can even cause an increased sense of anxiety in some people. To make your room appear larger, opt for lights that light up the walls, and the corners of your room that typically get the least amount of light. Install wall scones to bring a muted, calm light that also makes the space feel bigger and more dynamic. They are perfect to make your room a sanctuary after a long day at work.

Readers, you are long due for a tour of our living room. Yes, I have almost finished the redo, but there are a few little things that I just haven’t gotten to yet, and they are holding me up! I’m hoping to get everything finalized to share with you soon! But in the meantime, when Julie Austin asked to share a post on living room decorating ideas, I thought maybe I might get even more ideas for ours! HA! And I was most certainly right! Check it out…

The living room is called the living room for a reason. It’s that part of your home where you can just sit back and enjoy comfortable hours of leisure time with your friends and family. You can watch long hours of television on a snowy day even take a nap every day for some time.

Therefore, your living room should be a room which would display tons of comfort and an atmosphere of tranquility. Often we tend to confuse how we should go about decorating the living room with how we should not go over budget at the same time. Check out these 5 amazing ideas to decorate your living room as per your desire!

Go Contemporary

Contemporary color patterns are always fun. Home décor experts consider decorating the living room to be the best room in your home; you can get as creative as you want!

From wall hangings to decoration pieces; from bookshelves to furniture; you can experiment with it all. However, you need to make sure that the overall look of your living room does not go out of proportion, as this will get awkward.